This Quickstart provides you with the tools and know-how to install and work with the Linux Board Support Package (BSP) for the phyCORE-AM57x Rapid Development Kit. This Quickstart shows you how to do everything from installing the appropriate tools and source, to building custom kernels, to deploying the OS, to exercising the software and hardware. Please refer to the phyCORE-AM57x Hardware Manual for specific information on board-level features such as jumper configuration, memory mapping and pin layout for the phyCORE-AM57x System on Module (SOM) and baseboard. Additionally, gain access to the SOM and baseboard schematics for the phyCORE-AM57x Rapid Development Kit by registering at the following: http://phytec.com/support/registration/.
The following system requirements are necessary to successfully complete this Quickstart. Deviations from these requirements may suffice, or may have other workarounds.
AC adapter supplying 12VDC / min. 2A
This section is designed to get the board up-and-running with pre-built images.
Use the following as a reference for the connector interfaces on the phyCORE-AM57x Rapid Development Kit that will be used in this Quickstart.
The section was designed to show you how to boot the phyCORE-AM57x Rapid Development Kit with the pre-built demo images.
Press the power button S2 on the carrier board. You will now see power LEDs VDD_3V3, VDD_5V0, and VDD_12V0 on the carrier board light up a solid green. You will also start to see console output on your terminal window. If everything was done correctly the board should boot completely into Linux, arriving at a am57xx-phycore-rdk prompt. The default login account is root with an empty password. Note that the first time the board is booted it will takes a little while for the SSH server to generate new keys. Subsequent boots should be faster.
Not seeing any output on the console?
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The Yocto Project is a Linux embedded development environment which provides layers of meta data and tools. PHYTEC's AM57x Yocto BSP is based on the Arago Project, which contains BSP, distro, and application recipes and tools for TI platforms based on ARM processors. The layers that provide this are meta-ti, meta-arago, and meta-processor-sdk. The openEmbedded meta layer is also included in this BSP and is made up of a collection of meta layers which provide recipes for many software packages. The meta-phytec-ti layer leverages the Arago project as a base and contains recipes and configurations developed by PHYTEC. This layer defines configurations for u-boot, the kernel, and software specific to the phyCORE-AM57xx.
In order to help get started with PHYTEC's Yocto BSP structure, the repo tool can be used to obtain all the BSP sources relevant to your hardware configuration without interfacing with git. Detailed information on building this BSP from source is provided following the Development Host Setup section.
Yocto development requires certain packages to be installed. Run the following commands to ensure you have the packages installed:
sudo apt-get install git build-essential python diffstat texinfo gawk chrpath dos2unix wget unzip socat doxygen libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libz1:i386 lib32stdc++6 lib32ncurses5 lib32z1 libc6-dev-i386 cpio |
The above is the recommended package installation for development on a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Linux distribution. For a breakdown of the packages as well as a list of packages required for other Linux distributions, see the "Required Packages for the Host Development System" section in the Yocto Project Reference Manual: http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/1.8/ref-manual/ref-manual.html#required-packages-for-the-host-development-system |
Verify that the preferred shell for your Host PC is ''bash'' and not ''dash'':
sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash # Respond "No" to the prompt asking "Install dash as /bin/sh?" bash |
Download and install the repo tool. This tool is used to obtain Yocto source from Git.
cd /opt sudo mkdir bin # /opt/ directory has root permission, change the permissions so your user account can access this folder. In the following replace <user> with your specific username sudo chown -R <user>: bin cd bin curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ./repo #add directory that contains repo to your path chmod a+x repo |
Add the repo directory in your PATH, using export from the command line or permanently by including it in .bashrc:
export PATH=/opt/bin/:$PATH |
If you have not yet configured your Git environment on this machine, please execute the following commands to set your user name and email address. See here for more information on getting started with Git.
git config --global user.email "your@email.com" git config --global user.name "Your Name" git config --global http.sslcainfo /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt |
Create a directory which will house your BSP development. In this example the BSP directory is /opt/PHYTEC_BSPs/. This is not a requirement and if another location is preferred (ex. ~/PHYTEC_BSPs) feel free to modify. We recommend using /opt over your HOME directory to avoid errors attributed to ~ syntax as well as the sudo requirement for the root filesystem and automation package building. We also recommend creating a package download directory (yocto_dl) separate from the yocto tree (yocto_ti), as it makes resetting the build environment easier and subsequent build times much faster.
sudo mkdir /opt/PHYTEC_BSPs cd /opt/ # /opt/ directory has root permission, change the permissions so your user account can access this folder. In the following replace <user> with your specific username sudo chown -R <user>: PHYTEC_BSPs cd PHYTEC_BSPs mkdir yocto_ti mkdir yocto_dl cd yocto_ti export YOCTO_DIR=`pwd` |
At this point you will now be able to navigate to the Yocto directory using the $YOCTO_DIR environment variable.
Run the following commands to install the Linaro Toolchain:
wget https://releases.linaro.org/components/toolchain/binaries/5.3-2016.02/arm-linux-gnueabihf/gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz tar -Jxvf gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz -C /opt/PHYTEC_BSPs rm gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz |
Download the manifest file for the AM57xx PD17.1.0 BSP:
cd $YOCTO_DIR repo init -u https://stash.phytec.com/scm/pub/manifests-phytec.git -b am57xx -m PD17.1.0.xml |
Download the Yocto meta layers specified in the manifest file:
repo sync |
Run the Yocto build directory setup script. The TEMPLATECONF variable is used to set the source of the local configuration files (conf/bblayers.conf and conf/local.conf), which are located in the meta-phytec layer:
cd $YOCTO_DIR TEMPLATECONF=$YOCTO_DIR/sources/meta-phytec/meta-phytec-ti/conf MACHINE=am57xx-phycore-rdk source sources/oe-core/oe-init-build-env build |
Open the build/conf/local.conf file using your favorite editor and modify the the download directory to:
DL_DIR ?= "/opt/PHYTEC_BSPs/yocto_dl" |
Maximize build efficiency by modifying the BB_NUMBER_THREADS variable to suit your host development system. This sets the maximum number of tasks that BitBake should run in parallel. Also set the variable PARALLEL_MAKE to specify the number of threads that make can run. By default, these are set to 4 in build/conf/local.conf:
# Parallelism options - based on cpu count BB_NUMBER_THREADS ?= "4" PARALLEL_MAKE ?= "-j 4" |
Be sure to save your changes to the local.conf file before closing.
The Code Composer Studio (CCS) package that is required for the build cannot be downloaded automatically. Download it here: https://www.ti.com/licreg/docs/swlicexportcontrol.tsp?form_type=2&prod_no=CCS6.1.3.00034_linux.tar.gz&ref_url=http://software-dl.ti.com/ccs/esd/CCSv6/CCS_6_1_3/
You will need to create a TI account to access the file. Once the file has been downloaded, move it to /opt/PHYTEC_BSPs/yocto_dl, then run the following command:
This will tell the Yocto build that the file has already been downloaded. |
The setup is complete and you now have everything to complete a build. This BSP has been tested with the arago-core-tisdk-image, it is suggested that you start with this image before building other images. Alternate images are located in various meta layers at yocto_ti/sources/meta*/recipes*/images/*.bb. They can be found using the command bitbake-layers show-recipes "*-image*" in $YOCTO_DIR/build/.
The following will start a build from scratch including installation of the toolchain as well as bootloader, Linux kernel, and root filesystem images.
cd $YOCTO_DIR/build export PATH=/opt/PHYTEC_BSPs/gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin:$PATH MACHINE=am57xx-phycore-rdk bitbake arago-core-tisdk-image |
All images generated by bitbake are deployed to $YOCTO_DIR/build/arago-tmp-external-linaro-toolchain/deploy/images/<machine>:
Source Locations:
The build time will vary depending on the package selection and Host performance. Beyond the initial build, after making modifications to the BSP, a full build is not required. Use the following as a reference to take advantage of optimized build options and reduce the build time.
To rebuild U-Boot:
bitbake u-boot-phytec -f -c compile && bitbake u-boot-phytec |
To rebuild the Linux kernel:
bitbake linux-phytec-ti -f -c compile && bitbake linux-phytec-ti |
The Yocto project's Bitbake User Manual provides useful information regarding build options: http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/1.8/bitbake-user-manual/bitbake-user-manual.html
We recommend you create your own layer and make changes to the existing BSP there. This will make it easier to update the BSP. Instructions and tips on creating your own layer are available here: http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.1/dev-manual/dev-manual.html#creating-your-own-layer.
To modify an existing recipe in your own layer, use a bbappend file. The following is an example of modifying the u-boot-phytec_2016.05 recipe, u-boot-phytec_2016.05.bb, located at $YOCTO_DIR/sources/meta-phytec/meta-phytec-ti/recipes-bsp/u-boot/u-boot-phytec_2016.05.bb.
Create a recipes-bsp/u-boot/ directory in your own meta-layer to place the bbappend file in. Make sure that the new file matches the .bb file name exactly. Alternatively, you may use % after the underscore in place of the specific version for portability with future versions of the recipe.
mkdir $YOCTO_DIR/sources/<YOUR_META_LAYER>/recipes-bsp/u-boot/ vim $YOCTO_DIR/sources/<YOUR_META_LAYER>/recipes-bsp/u-boot/u-boot-phytec_%.bbappend |
For information on how to write a recipe, see chapter 5.3 of the Yocto Development Manual: http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/current/dev-manual/dev-manual.html#understanding-recipe-syntax
There are various ways to add a package to the BSP. For example, packages and package groups can be added to image recipes. See the Yocto Development manual for how to customize an image: http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/current/dev-manual/dev-manual.html#usingpoky-extend-customimage-imagefeatures.
The following instructions demonstrate how to add a package to the local build of the BSP. First, search for the corresponding recipe and which layer the recipe is in. This link is a useful tool for doing so: httphttp://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/branch/krogoth/layers/.
If the package is in the meta-openembedded layer, the recipe is already available in your build tree. Add the following line to $YOCTO_DIR/build/conf/local.conf:
IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " <package>" |
The leading whitespace between the " and the package name is necessary for the append command. |
If you need to add a layer to the BSP, clone or extract it to the $YOCTO_DIR/sources/ directory. Then, modify $YOCTO_DIR/build/conf/bblayers.conf to include this new layer in BBLAYERS:
BBLAYERS += "${BSPDIR}/sources/<new_layer>" |
The kernel configuration menu allows the user to adjust drivers and support included in a Linux Kernel build. Run the following command from the build directory:
cd $YOCTO_DIR/build bitbake linux-phytec-ti -c menuconfig |
Then rebuild the kernel:
bitbake linux-phytec-ti -f -c compile && bitbake linux-phytec-ti |
To rebuild the root filesystem:
bitbake arago-core-tisdk-image |
The device tree is a data structure for describing hardware, and is a way of separating machine specific information from the kernel. For information on the device tree concept, devicetree.org is a good source: http://devicetree.org/Device_Tree_Usage.
Device trees for PHYTEC products consist of a board 'dts' file, a SOM 'dtsi' file, and a carrier board 'dtsi' file.
Board DTS file: All of the SoM and Carrier Board peripherals are enabled or disabled in am57xx-phycore-rdk.dts
SoM DTSI file: Includes the processor 'dtsi' and contains definitions for all devices that are located on the SOM, such as eMMC flash
Carrier Board DTSI file: Peripherals whose signals are routed through the SOM but whose hardware is located on the carrier board are defined in the carrier board 'dtsi', such as MMC
To disable a peripheral such as EEPROM, change the status of the i2c_eeprom in arch/arm/boot/dts/am57xx-phycore-rdk.dts from "okay" to "disabled":
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The kernel source directory has very good documentation and examples on what bindings are supported for specific peripherals: Documentation/devicetree/bindings/.
If you are looking for the binary images, you can always find them on PHYTEC's Artifactory. For the PD17.1.0 release package Click Here |
The process requires an SD card reader operational under Linux to format and access the Linux partition of the card. If you do not have SD card access under Linux then copying the bootloader and mounting the root filesystem on SD/MMC card will not be possible.
If modifying the root filesystem, remove the existing:
sudo rm -rf /media/<user>/rootfs/* |
Load the new filesystem to the SD Card.
sudo tar -zxf tisdk-rootfs-image-am57xx-phycore-rdk.tar.gz -C /media/<user>/rootfs; sync; |
If intending to replace the kernel and root filesystem with images from the same build, this step can be skipped. The root filesystem already contains the kernel and DTB files in its boot/ directory. |
If modifying the kernel, remove the existing kernel image and device tree binary files.
sudo rm /media/<user>/rootfs/boot/zImage sudo rm /media/<user>/rootfs/boot/devicetree-zImage-am57xx-phycore-rdk.dtb |
Load the new Linux kernel and device tree binary to the SD Card. Note that u-boot expects the kernel to be named "zImage" and the DTB file to be named "am57xx-phycore-rdk.dtb":
sudo cp zImage /media/<user>/rootfs/boot/zImage; sync; sudo cp zImage-am57xx-phycore-rdk.dtb /media/<user>/rootfs/boot/devicetree-zImage-am57xx-phycore-rdk.dtb; sync; |
Remove the existing U-Boot and MLO images:
rm /media/<user>/boot/u-boot.img rm /media/<user>/boot/MLO |
Copy the new images to the SD Card:
cp u-boot.img /media/<user>/boot/u-boot.img; sync cp MLO /media/<user>/boot/MLO; sync |
The bootloader, one of the key software components included in the BSP, completes the required hardware initializations to download and run operating system images. The boot mode, selected from the S5 dipswitch on the Carrier Board, determines the location of the primary bootloader. Set the S5 dipswitch correspondingly:
Once the boot switch has been set appropriately, press the power button S2 on the phyCORE-AM57xx carrier board to power on the board. |
After application of power, approximately three seconds are allotted for the user to hit any key which will halt autoboot and enter U-Boot:
help is a useful tool in U-Boot to show available commands and usage. |
You can check the target's default environment settings by running the following:
printenv |
The ethaddr variable is the MAC id of the target. This is a pre-programmed value which is read from the E-fuse and matches the sticker on the SOM. Set U-boot's network environment variables to match your required network settings:
setenv ipaddr ###.###.###.### setenv serverip ###.###.###.##. setenv gatewayip ###.###.###.### setenv netmask ###.###.###.### setenv tftploc <TFTP image location> setenv rootpath /<NFS mount location> |
ipaddr - A dedicated IP address for the SOM. This is crucial if TFTP will be used for updating the device's images at any point.
serverip - IP address of the host or another machine. serverip corresponds to where the TFTP directory, if it exists, is located.
gatewayip - Gateway IP for the network. This is only necessary if the TFTP directory is located on another network.
netmask - Netmask for the network: typically 255.255.255.0. This is only necessary if the TFTP directory is located on another network.
tftploc (required for TFTP) - Location of the path to the images on the TFTP server on the host system, setup in Section 4.4.1. Set the variable accordingly by referencing the following examples:
File Path | U-Boot Command |
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/var/lib/tftpboot/PHYTEC/am57xx/PD17.1.0 | setenv tftploc PHYTEC |
/var/lib/tftpboot | setenv tftploc |
Use the following command to verify that all of the environment variables are set as intended:
printenv |
After confirming the environment variables are correct, save them and continue on to the next section to set the correct kernel and root filesystem boot location:
saveenv |
The target can be booted from on-board media or from a development host via network. In our standard configuration, this BSP release loads the kernel and root filesystem from SD/MMC.
For booting via network, the development host is connected to the phyCORE-AM57xx Rapid Development Kit with a serial cable and via Ethernet; the embedded board boots into the bootloader, then issues a TFTP request on the network and boots the kernel and device tree from the TFTP server on the host. Then, after decompressing the kernel into RAM and starting it, the kernel mounts its root filesystem via the NFS server on the host. This method is especially useful for development purposes as it provides a quick turnaround while testing the kernel and root filesystem.
To configure U-boot to boot the kernel from eMMC, modify the boot_mmc environment variable and set the bootcmd environment variable to make it the default setting:
setenv boot_mmc 'run findfdt; setenv mmcdev 1;setenv bootpart 1:2;setenv finduuid 'part uuid mmc 1:2 uuid';run envboot;run mmcboot;setenv mmcdev 0;setenv bootpart 0:2; setenv finduuid 'part uuid mmc 0:2 uuid'; run mmcboot;' setenv bootcmd 'run boot_mmc' saveenv |
To configure U-Boot to boot the kernel from TFTP and mount the root filesystem from NFS, configure the network as described above and then set the bootcmd environment variable to make it the default setting:
setenv bootcmd 'run boot_net' saveenv |
By default, the phyCORE-AM57xx kit is set up to boot the Linux kernel and root filesystem from SD. If switching from another boot configuration back to SD, modify the boot_mmc environment variable and set the bootcmd environment variable to make it the default setting:
setenv boot_mmc 'run findfdt; setenv mmcdev 0;setenv bootpart 0:2;setenv finduuid 'part uuid mmc 0:2 uuid';run envboot;run mmcboot;setenv mmcdev 1;setenv bootpart 1:2; setenv finduuid 'part uuid mmc 1:2 uuid'; run mmcboot;' setenv bootcmd 'run boot_mmc' saveenv |
Unique boot configurations can be created by defining the desired environment variable settings and setting bootcmd to run its contents. The following is an example:
Boot the Linux Kernel via TFTP with Root Filesystem on SD:
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The Linux commands listed in this section will only work correctly if Linux is booted from SD card. |
The board Development Kit is delivered with a pre-flashed bootloader. The following instructions for flashing images from SD card will be useful if you want to:
The images to be flashed will need to be copied to the /boot or /rootfs/boot/ partition of a properly formatted SD card as described in the Creating a Bootable SD Card section of the Quickstart.
Write a GPT partition table to eMMC. Create UUIDs for the disk and each partition by executing the following on the host machine:
uuidgen <first UUID generated> uuidgen <second UUID generated> uuidgen <third UUID generated> |
After making all required connections, power on the board and enter U-Boot. Set the UUIDs for the disk and rootfs to the generated values:
U-Boot # setenv uuid_gpt_disk <first UUID> U-Boot # setenv uuid_gpt_rootfs <second UUID> U-Boot # setenv uuid_gpt_env <third UUID> U-Boot # gpt write mmc 1 ${partitions} U-Boot # reset |
The partition gpt partition will be visible after a reset. (Note that mmc0 corresponds with the SD card slot interface, while mmc1 corresponds with eMMC):
U-Boot # mmc dev 1 U-Boot # mmc part |
Boot into Linux from the SD card, then use fdisk with the following options to write a new GPT partition table to eMMC:
fdisk /dev/mmcblk1 g GPT partition table n new partition 1 partition number 2048 first sector 4096 last sector n new partition 2 partition number 6144 first sector <enter> use default value w write table to disk and exit partprobe |
Copy the MLO and u-boot.img from the /boot partition of the SD card (connector X2, mmc0 in U-Boot) to eMMC (mmc1 in U-Boot):
U-Boot # mmc dev 0 U-Boot # mmc rescan U-Boot # mmc dev 1 U-Boot # fatload mmc 0 ${loadaddr} MLO U-Boot # mmc write ${loadaddr} 0x100 0x100 U-Boot # mmc write ${loadaddr} 0x200 0x100 U-Boot # fatload mmc 0 ${loadaddr} u-boot.img U-Boot # mmc write ${loadaddr} 0x300 0x400 |
Boot into Linux from the SD card and run the following commands to copy MLO and u-boot.img to eMMC:
dd if=/run/media/mmcblk0p1/MLO of=/dev/mmcblk1 seek=256 count=256 dd if=/run/media/mmcblk0p1/MLO of=/dev/mmcblk1 seek=512 count=256 dd if=/run/media/mmcblk0p1/u-boot.img of=/dev/mmcblk1 seek=768 count=1024 |
If rootfs.ext4 is larger than the size of the DDR3, it can only be flashed in Linux. The default rootfs.ext4 for BSP-Yocto-TISDK-AM57xx-PD17.1.0 is larger than the default DDR3 size (2GB). |
The rootfs.ext4 image is not loaded to the card by default. Copy it to the root of the rootfs partition on the SD card. |
Boot into Linux from the SD card, then copy the root filesystem to eMMC:
dd if=/rootfs.ext4 of=/dev/mmcblk1p2 bs=1M |
This assumes the SD card was created with TI's create-sdcard.sh script. If the SD card is formatted differently, the ext4load command may need to be replaced by fatload. |
Copy the root filesystem from the /rootfs partition of the SD card (connector X2, mmc0 in U-Boot) to eMMC (mmc1 in U-boot):
U-boot # mmc dev 1 U-boot # ext4load mmc 0:2 ${loadaddr} rootfs.ext4 U-boot # mmc write ${loadaddr} 0x1800 [rootfs.ext4 size in bytes divided by 512, in hex] |